A chat with Mike Myers, and some Avs updates/predictions

It’s not every day hockey scribblers like me get a chance to talk to a real, live movie star, but yesterday I, along with a handful of other journalists, had a chance to chat with Mike Myers about his forthcoming movie, “The Love Guru.”

“The Love Guru” is a film largely about hockey, specifically the quest of Myers’ lead character to break the Stanley Cup curse of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The star of the Leafs in the film, played by Romany Malco, is flummoxed over his wife having an affair with a player from the Los Angeles Kings, played by Justin Timberlake. It’s affecting his play, and the Cup fortunes of the Leafs. Enter the Love Guru.

Anyway, what we mostly talked about yesterday was Myers’ deep affection for the game of hockey. He grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, which is serious Maple Leafs country. He was four when the Leafs won their last Stanley Cup, so he has technically seen one in his lifetime. But he doesn’t remember any of it, and considers himself just another frustrated fan over the “Ballard Curse”, the plague of the disastrous 18-year ownership of the team by Harold Ballard in which only six winning seasons occurred.

That’s why the owner of the Leafs in the film, played by Jessica Alba, has the last name of “Bullard.”

Myers was talking about how he thought the Leafs of 1993 might finally get another Cup, when I mentioned that Wayne Gretzky – one of Myers’ idols growing up and a friend now – “broke his heart” with a great Game 7 performance in the Western Finals.

Myers cut me right off and said, “Let me just say something: Mr. Wayne Gretzky is not capable of breaking my heart. That man is a Canadian god. You cannot say anything bad about that man to me.”

Lesson learned. When Myers was still on “Saturday Night Live” and he first heard that The Great One would be co-hosting one week, he said he “dove for the phone like it was a live grenade” to tell his friends and family.

Myers sounded like he would trade all of his millions and movie glory to have been an NHL player.
“Any time I meet an NHL player, I get all tongue-tied. I’m like, eight years old again. I have to say, it’s only about five years ago that I gave up my dream of playing in the NHL,” he said. “It’s something that a Canadian man holds onto for a very long time, well past the appropriate age.”

Myers mentioned that former Av Rob Blake is in the movie, although he passed along the sad news that all of Blake’s spoken lines ended up on the cutting room floor.

“About 70 percent of my lines end up the same way. So, he’s in good company,” Myers said.

For hockey fans, this movie seems like it will be, to quote one of Myers’ other characters, Wayne Campbell, “Excellent.”

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It’s a tough time right now for Andrew Brunette. Not only are the Avs showing no interest in talking contract right now with his agent, Donald Reynolds, but Brunette just lost his best friend to stomach cancer. On top of that, Bruno is going to have shoulder surgery in a couple weeks.

The loss of his friend is the worst part of it all, of course. Don’t weep for him, career-wise, though. If the Avs don’t re-sign him – and I’m pretty sure they won’t – he’ll get a nice offer from someone, that’s for sure.

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The Avs, as I wrote today in the paper, appear to be on the way to a deal with Jose Theodore.

For Kurt Sauer fans, there seems to be optimism that he might be back as well. Sauer’s agent told me today preliminary talks are underway. With talks having started with Jeff Finger as well, the question begs: where does that leave John Liles?

Well, the answer is that I don’t know at the moment. Liles’ agent hasn’t returned any calls, and you know the Avs never say anything about what’s going on with contract matters.

Personally, I think it would be a drastic mistake to let Liles just go for nothing. Look back on some of your playoff game tapes from this year, and tell me that Liles wasn’t their best defenseman much of the time. At least, when it came to getting the puck out of the zone and up the ice, he was.

Are they really going to just hand over Liles’ role to Kyle Cumiskey? I think that’s a mistake at this point. Cumiskey still has a LOT to learn in his own end. Yeah, he’s got great wheels and can get the puck out probably even faster than Liles. But he was turnover-prone at times with the Avs, and the fact is he’s only scored one NHL goal.

A lot of NHL scouts and GMs think very highly of Liles, so if he’s left unrestricted July 1, I think you can expect a mini-feeding frenzy for his services. Maybe the Avs don’t think they can afford him – and keep everybody else they want to keep. But I think Liles should be a higher priority to sign over guys like Sauer and Finger.

Finger is just too slow at times. At the end of a shift, Finger often could do nothing more than just stand there, looking winded. He’s got to improve his conditioning if he’s going to stick in the league. That said, he’s one of the most physical Avs’ D-men and showed better offensive skill than you might have guessed.

Yes, Liles was awful in the first half of last year, and, no, I’m not saying the Avs should reward him with some kind of $3-4 million a year deal. But what I am saying is players with his kind of speed and puck-handling ability on the blue line are hard to find, and his first three years in the league were pretty darned good. I think it’s a big mistake to let a young kid like that go.